“Can you write then?”
“Ay, but dinna let on.”
It was a useful test. If she came back with paper as he hoped, then he’d know he might trust her which was important for the most complicated part of his plan. If she came back alongside Leigh demanding to know why he’d lied about his ability to read, then he might be in for another leathering but he’d know what he needed to about Kat. Her face had suddenly fallen.
“But what about your leg? How can you kill Captain Leigh with that?”
“Whit about it?”
She looked at the splint and then stopped. He put his finger on his lips and winked and got from her the first real smile he’d ever seen on her face.
Then she dusted crumbs from her greasy kirtle and jumped to her feet and trotted determinedly away with her wooden clogs clacking on the cobblestones of the path.
The old woman came out later and watched him at his digging with her hands on her hips.
“Will ye have that ready by this evening, Goodman?” she demanded.
“Ay,” he said, “the dog’s helping.”
The dog had done some digging and found a greenish bone which he was gnawing on quite happily. Suddenly he lifted his head and sniffed the air, then whined nervously, pawed the bone back into the earth and skulked round to hide behind Dodd.
The carlin went out to the front of the cottage and Dodd could hear the big bearlike man called Harry Hunks tramping to the front door in Dodd’s own boots. The sound of talking came to him. Quick as he could, he hopped over to listen by the path and caught Harry Hunks’ last sentence.
“…and make sure he sleeps, we don’t want him getting out.”
“The pit will hold him, Harry, he’s broken his leg.”
“Make sure he don’t get out or I’ll burn your cottage.”
“Captain Leigh wouldn’t like that.”
“Then I’ll kill your dog.”
Nothing more, so Dodd hopped back and sat down by his trench just in time. Harry Hunks loured round the side of the cottage and pointed at him.
“You!” he shouted. “You stay put or I’ll break your other leg.”
Dodd did his best to look cowed, touched his capless head and quavered “Yes, sir!” at the big lout. Harry Hunks turned about and stamped away, damaging Dodd’s good boots by kicking a hole in the hurdles of the goat pen as he went.
Dodd’s belly gave a great growl and grumble then which wasn’t surprising since he hadn’t eaten all day. He went over and shoved back the inquiring goat’s head that instantly came through the gap.
“Missus,” he called, “ye’ll need tae move yer goats.”
The grandam came out the back of the cottage, saw the damage and shook her head. Then she hobbled over and put a halter round the billy kid’s neck. There was a nanny kid as well that she haltered and the two others were nannies with still-heavy udders.
The grandam dragged the two half-grown kids back toward the cottage, both protesting at being separated from their mothers. The nannies pushed through the gate to follow.
“You can herd the nannies, if you’re minded to, Goodman,” shouted the carlin.
“Ay missus,” said Dodd, who caught the nannies by a horn each and looked them in the long-pupilled eyes. One said “Neh!” in a testy way, so she was the one he led ahead of the others and they came quietly enough. It was as well to respect rank among goats as well as men.
Kat had joined them by the time the goats were in their tumbledown shed beside the cottage and Dodd had already mended the hurdle. She was looking smug and she whispered at him,
“Can you milk goats?”
The question irritated him. Of course he could milk goats, he could milk anything with teats and had once milked a sow for a bet and nearly got his nose bitten off. “Ay,” he said.
“Can Mr. Elliot help me with the milking, Grandam?” asked Kat artlessly and the old woman nodded. The day was cooling and Dodd wondered where the pit was where he’d sleep that night. He hadn’t expected that there would be room for all three of them in the bothy with its yard-high walls, quite apart from the propriety of it.
The child brought a stool and two good big earthenware bowls to the shed, sat down and started on the younger nanny’s udder, pulling at the teats roughly and impatiently. Dodd squatted by the older one, rubbed her flanks, butted his head a couple of times where a kid would nuzzle and made a quiet goat noise. Then he licked his fingers and wibbled the teats, rubbed the spit on. As soon as the first few drops had oozed out, he started the rhythmic work with his hands which he hadn’t done since he went to Carlisle. It took him right back to his boyhood when he’d had four goats to milk every morning and evening. The goat let down her milk almost at once and he soon filled the bowl with warm milk to the brim. Then because his stomach was griping him something terrible and he wasn’t convinced the carlin would waste any supper on him, he ducked his head and milked a stream of warm creamy milk straight into his mouth.
He stopped when he saw that Kat was staring at him.
“Whit?” he asked, wiping milk off his beard.
“How did you fill it up so quickly?” the child asked, still wrenching away at the other goat’s udder in a way that made Dodd feel sore in the teats he didn’t have. Had nobody ever taught her?
“Tell ye what,” he said, “let me finish her off and ye can tell me what Captain Leigh is planning.”
She gave him the stool and he squatted down again, butted the nanny’s pungent flank and let her poor udder rest a little. The bowl was hardly half full and only with the thin first milk, none of the cream. He patted and rubbed her neck and waited.
“So why aren’t you getting on with it?” demanded the angry child.
His mother had taught him to milk goats this way, God rest her, and so he told the angry child what she had told him.
“Because ye’ll get more milk by kindness than ye will any ither way. They won’t give ye the milk if ye hurt ’em or mek ’em sore.”
Kat’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What do you mean?” she demanded, “They’ve got food. Nobody’s beating them.”
He teased the teats a little with his wetted fingers.
“Ay, Kat, listen, the milk’s for their kid. Ye’ve got to fool ’em you’re their kid, then they let out all their milk not just the thin stuff.” He did it again. “So what’s Captain Leigh planning?”
She was still scowling. “I tore some clean paper out of a book in the parlour when Captain Leigh went to look at your other horse that they found, the one with the white sock and I got it from John Arden that him and Jeronimo are in charge along of Harry Hunks when Leigh goes off to Oxford in the morning to find your master and the Earl of Essex too. The Queen’s not there yet.”
Dodd raised his eyebrows. Carey had been talking about the Queen being at Oxford for a month but then she was a woman. He held out his hand for the paper and took it-nice thick creamy stuff it was, with a pretty border of flowers. Some monkish thing, no doubt. He’d forgotten to ask her to find ink, but some charcoal was a better proposition, less complicated than a pen.
“You heard about Grandam keeping you in the old monk’s cellar until Captain Leigh comes back.”
“Ay.”
“He’s going to buy ribbons!” she spat, her face twisted in fury, “with my money!”
That was when the younger nanny decided to let down her milk and the drops came, so he took the teats and started milking two steady streams into the bowl.
“How far is it tae Oxford from here?”
“I don’t know.”
“How long does it take ye to walk to market there then?”
“Maybe two hours?”
“How d’ye ken…know?”
“Well when we go to market with the cheeses we start before sun up and when we get there the gates are open and the market’s started.”
Maybe six or seven miles then. He could run that in an hour and a bit, given a reasonable path and not too many hills. However he didn’t like to think of what that would do to his poor soft feet. He wasn’t about to do it if he had a better plan, which he did. And besides, he wasn’t crawling back to Carey in rags and bare feet and no sword. Not him.